Pope's call for dialogue: One
Muslim's response

Affirm commonalities - and set the record straight on Islam.

By Asma Afsaruddin

NOTRE DAME, IND.

In the wake of Pope
Benedict XVI's address in Germany last month, it is useful to recapitulate the
views of a 10th-century Muslim historian by the name of al-Masudi on the
relationship between faith and reason.

In a famous
historical work, Masudi wrote that the Byzantine Christians of his time were
suffering civilizational decline because they had rejected the pagan Greek
sciences as incompatible with Christianity. In contrast, he wrote that Muslim
civilization was prospering because it had assimilated ancient learning and
built on it.

Some of the
best-known philosophers of the medieval period - Avicenna, Averroes, al-Farabi -
were Muslims, and their thought was influential in medieval Europe, too. Without
the diffusion of this intellectual and cultural legacy, there may well have been
no European Renaissance!

In other words, it
was the Muslims who had successfully blended faith with reason - and left the
Christians behind.

As such, it is
highly ironic that the pope would use the words of a 14th- century Byzantine
emperor to redirect the same accusation at Muslims in the 21st century.

There is a danger
when any person argues that his own religion and civilization have a monopoly on
reason and have effected the best synthesis between faith and reason. Such
triumphalism is a serious impediment to dialogue and any kind of sustained civil
discourse. If dialogue is what the pope sought, implying the superiority of
Western civilization and its supposedly unique values is a nonstarter.

Dialogue is better
served through the humble acknowledgment of commonalities, of one's own sins,
and of one's connectedness to the other.

It is also served
by setting the record straight. Muslims have subscribed to a variety of views on
the relationship between faith and reason.

Two main trends
remain influential within Sunni Muslim theology today. One is represented by the
Ashari school of thought, which maintains that faith or revelation always trumps
reason. The other is represented by the Maturidi school, which holds that
reason, independent of revelation, can arrive at the same truths. Both camps are
considered orthodox within Sunni Islam, with Maturidi thought gaining ground.

In an earlier
period, the Mutazilis (known as the Rationalists) claimed that there was no
incompatibility between faith and reason. Shiites have also historically
emphasized the rational basis of their school of thought.

One cannot,
therefore, simplistically and reductively portray Islam as preferring faith over
reason or vice versa. Nor can one portray Christianity, or perhaps any other
faith tradition, in this manner, either.

The key to getting
along is to learn the truth about one another and avoid trading in pernicious
stereotypes. Prof. Richard Bulliet of Columbia University has recently coined
the term "Islamo-Christian civilization" to describe our shared heritage. This
concept deserves to gain broader currency.

Religious groups
can limit extremism by uniting on common social causes: eradicating global
poverty, promoting human dignity, reinserting moral and ethi- cal values in the
public sphere and in international diplomacy, and holding our leaders
accountable to such values.

It is on such
common ground, constructed on universal ethical principles, that diverse groups
of people, faith-based and secular, can come together.

• Asma
Afsaruddin is a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of
Notre Dame and the author of the forthcoming book "The First Muslims: History
and Memory." This article first appeared at Common Ground News Service (
www.commongroundnews.org).

Pope Benedict: Listen to the great insights of
religions

Excerpts from
the pope's talk at Regensburg, Germany last month:

...[14th century
Byzantine emperor Manuel II] addresses his interlocutor with a startling
brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question
about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show
me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only
evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he
preached."

...For philosophy
and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences
and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian
faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an
unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding.

...The courage to
engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is
the program with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the
debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is
contrary to the nature of God," said Manuel II, according to his Christian
understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this
great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in
the dialogue of cultures.

from the October 31, 2006 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1031/p09s01-coop.html